Archive for the ‘Offshore money’ Category

E-magazines and e-books will soon overtake printed publications in terms of market share in developed countries. The tablet revolution has made a deep impact on the publications market: habits of readers are changing fast and user needs with regard to digital publications are changing even faster.

If you want to capture your digital audience it is of critical importance to think about digital publications not only as the electronic twins of the printed versions but as a completely new and different animal. There are so many features in digital publications that can excite and win readers (search function, integrated video and audio formats, zooming, living links, self-updating charts etc. etc.). Any publisher needs to think very carefully about what functions and features to add.

For wealth managers daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly publications are an important tool to ensure client loyalty but also to gain new clients. As more and more people move to the digital usage of publications this brings up a big opportunity to rethink and reinvent a wealth managers’ publications strategy from the ground up.

In our new report “E-Publications for Wealth Management Clients” we are tackling these complex issues: how should a good e-publication look? Which features are required? What formats and digital delivery channels (including) mobile should be used? What content is most appealing to readers? And so on…

Most wealth managers invest substantial resources in the communication with clients via regular publications. To spend these resources wisely reading this report is imperative.

In our last post we have asked ‘Where is Gaddafis’s money?’. Over the last few days governments around the world have started freezing his assets. You get some background here, here and here. It seems that governments are working more or less in concert on this issue. Yet it also seem that the Colonel from Libya has taken some precautions just before the violence started.

It remains to be seen what happens to Gaddafis’s assets when the war drags on or when he is able to overwhelm his opponents in Libya.

Of course at this stage the amount of money Gaddafi and his criminal gang of friends and family have stolen from Libya is speculative, as well as the countries, banks and companies where it is hidden. However, the hunt for the money begun. Switzerland and the UK frezzed his assets, respectively at least the share the know about and have access to.

Todays RT´s article “Defaulting on dictators: hunt for Gaddafi’s loot begins” draws on various credible sources to describe the stage of the hunt for Gaddafis money and where it is hidden. In total the wealth of the clan is estimated to go up to USD 80! billion, the majority squirreled away in Libya itself. The liquid assets alone are estimated at about USD 20 billion. No bad for a revolutionary leader. Not surprisingly Switzerland and the United Kingdom are prime candidates as places where the money is stashed away. Certainly news of other Gaddafi investments and financial havens will continue to pop up.

Let´s hope this freak and his screwed-up family is gone soon, that a lot of money will get back to the people in Libya (and will put to good use) and that not only politicians, but also banks and wealth managers will learn their lessons on the risks of dealing with dictators. (See our research brief “What the Arab Revolution means for Wealth Managers“)

It seems that over at Credit Suisse they are panicking about the tax probes lead by the Germans and other European governments against offshore clients and also bank advisers. We have been contacted by former Credit Suisse clients, some of them long standing clients, who have been rudely kicked out as clients. We have credible information that even clients who legalized their holdings in Switzerland have seen their accounts canceled. Only few weeks ago Credit Suisse sent a letter to foreign clients with less than 1 Mio. Euro that they have to pay additional fees if they want to keep an account in Switzerland. MyPrivateBanking has copies of this letter. We will follow up with this story next week and hope to get some comments from the CS management.

After some dispute within the German federal government on the legality the German state Lower-Saxony finally bought another CD containing data from about 20.000 German holders of Swiss bank account. This time supposley Euro 185.000 were paid to an unidentified seller.

Just want to quickly post a link to the Swiss (German speaking) daily NZZ which today had an excellent analysis on the new Fatca act that was just signed by Obama. This law requires that foreign banks and other financial instiutions disclose all US account holders to the US tax authorities. The provisions include a 30 percent withholding tax on U.S. source payments to foreign financial institutions, foreign trusts, and foreign corporations that do not agree to disclose their U.S. account holders and owners to the IRS. We will follow up early next week with more analysis on our main site as this is a major and impotant development.